When they had gone, Pollard asked:
"Have you seen Miss Agatha since that day last spring, when you were requested not to visit The Oaks?"
For a moment Baillie remained silent. Then he said: "If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk of that, Marshall."
That was all that passed between these two on that subject during the week of Marshall's stay at Warlock. How unlike men are to women in these things! Had these two young men been two young women instead, how minutely each would have confided to the other the last detail of experience and thought and feeling! And this not because women are more emotional than men—for they are not—but because they are not ashamed, as men are, of the tenderer side of their natures.
XII
Under escort
No sooner had Agatha Ronald determined to enter upon a career of very dangerous service to her cause and country, than she set herself diligently to the work of perfecting plans which were at first vague and undefined. It was no part of her purpose to fail if by any forethought and thoroughness of preparation she might avert the danger of failure. She determined to do nothing until every point and possibility, so far as conditions could be foreseen, should be considered and provided for.
First of all, she entered into perfect confidence with her maid, Martha, telling the trusty negro woman as she meant to tell no other person near her, except her grandfather, precisely what she intended to do, and how. Martha had a shrewd intelligence likely to be useful in emergencies, and her devotion to her mistress was as absolute as that of any devotee to an object of worship. This mistress had been hers to care for by night and by day ever since Agatha had been four years of age. All of loyalty, all of affection, all of self-sacrificing devotion of which the negro character in its best estate is capable, she gave to Agatha, never doubting her due or questioning her right to such service of the heart and soul. She knew no other love than this, no other life than that of unceasing, all-embracing care for her mistress.
It was with no shadow of doubt or hesitation, therefore, that Agatha revealed her purposes to Martha, and asked for her aid in carrying them out. And Martha received the somewhat startling confidence as calmly as if her mistress had been telling her of an intended afternoon drive.